I feel some powerups in novels just feels too cheap. And despite the MC being powerfull, I feel like he dont deserve the power he got. What do you think is the most fair.. How you can truely says the MC is powerfull in anyway Comment bellow if I miss any powerups
Natural and fair are different concepts. Half of what you've put into choices can be described as 'natural' but for it to be fair MC will need to put a lot of hard work into cultivating himself. Even instant rewards from potions/pills can be described as fair if protagonist nearly worked his ass off to obtain/create them and not picked them on the side of a road.
Hmm... I say time loop. It has MC's natural capability as limitation. How strong the MC is is determined by how much effort he is willing to pay for power that may not be there tomorrow. The improvement is reset every time, so MC can only on his/her brain. I don't really like gifted power tbh. Also, I'd like to see author who makes the MC's effort unrewarded some times.
Theres this one system novel Ive redt where you can gain trait and level ups thru killing enemies.. Ofcourse being a pro gamer the MC gets to a really high level and even beat high tier enemies with it. But once the source of the system is beaten... everyone in the world lost their game system powers including the MC. . And the MC turn fron being able to kill dragons and demi gods into just a stronger human that relly on dodges to kill mid tier monsters.. while everyone else just turns into a slightly better humans. And it got me thinking... Seems like the power MC had wasnt realy his..
It depends on the novel; I like Soul of Negary and it has MC with virus power, but on the other hand didn't like the typical vibe of the japanese manga with virus power MC.
What is Soul of Negary about? I wanted to start reading it but I didn't understand anything from summary.
Spoiler The MC got teleported to another world and got a personal system to help him. But it turned out, he got scammed by that very system. He died and became a spirit with virus power. From here on, the MC wanto to be stronger. Everything that can make him stronger, he does that. One thing that make him seem very serious about it, it that he will absorb the good personality traits from the infected. He knows the good personally traits by basically having trials for the infected. Anyway, the MC gets more abilites gradually, but it doesn't change that he wants to get stronger. The fun thing about it, is he would be able to transport to other world and these world all seem to have their own laws in relation to a power system.
I think any of the methods can feel either natural or unnatural. For instance, OPM is pretty funny but even though he sincerely trained every day and got stronger through his efforts, you can consider it an unnatural gain for the amount of effort put in. For instance, someone could randomly give you a superpower, but it turns out it wasn't completely random and you were a guinea pig for an evil organization planning on taking over the world, and now you have to use your superpower to defeat multiple villains who also have equal or stronger superpowers after they got data from your test results. Whether a character "deserves" the power has much less to do with how they acquired it, and more how they use it and their general personality, and it's completely a judgment call on the observers' side rather than something that can be objectively decided. I mean, someone could work extremely hard at levelling up by training their stealth skills and killing innocent passersby for experience (whether it's level system or just getting practice killing people without being noticed). You can say they earned the skills, you can say they got the skills naturally, but I believe that not everyone will say they really "deserve" the skills.
Sudden realization - mind uses data to refine algorithms related to whatever its owner is passionate about, until these algorithms finally evolve.
Ok the most realistic is taught by a master + time skip, repetitive training and breaking through limits slowly. These make the most sense in the real world and in fantasy worlds. Might not be the most entertaining but it’s logical.
Feeling too cheap and feeling "natural" seem like quite different concepts to me. But it's clear OP wants to focus on "too cheap", so: There's a lot that goes into making a power-up feel "earned" but if I had to boil it down to one thing.. I'd say that the most critical element is "setbacks". No matter HOW the MC gained the power up, it will feel more earned if the MC didn't have a smooth road in its acquisition. Especially if they faced difficulties that pushed them out of their element, forcing them to respond to a new and stressful situation in some way. Power ups that were also accompanied by character development tend to feel a bit more earned, but that isn't essential as long as the road was truly difficult for the MC. There are other elements that can help make a powerup feel earned, or make it feel *less* earned, but I think "setbacks" is the most important of the lot. (EDIT: But, of course, that doesn't mean setbacks alone guarantee it'll feel earned. But the rest of the situation would need to be pretty inane for a powerup gained by overcoming genuine, truly difficult setbacks to not feel at least a little earned).